The age-old adage of never judging a book by its cover has never been more applicable to indie horror games than it is right now.
We are inundated on a nearly daily basis with a variety of horror games, tapping into all manner of sub-genres and styles.
You genuinely love to see it as a genre fan, but more importantly, it is fantastic to see audiences crop up around any and all types of horror experiences, no matter how extreme it may be.
And while AAA horror might pride itself on delivering the most polished scares around, to say they have been lacking in exploring the seedier side of horror isn’t much of a reach.
Enter Puppet Combo (aka Ben Cucuzza).
Through utilizing lo-fi PS1-styled graphics, Cucuzza has built a brand on his distinctive approach to horror. Masterfully subverting audience expectations by crafting worlds using familiar textures and polygons and then filling it with unimaginable horrors. Horrors that never dared grace games of that era that he is so heavily influenced by and emulates.
And Murder House, which was recently ported to all major consoles, is seemingly the gory survival horror crescendo Cucuzza has been building towards, so where better to begin our exploration of indie horror and Puppet Combo’s work?
For this week’s episode of Safe Room, Neil and I enlisted the help of Rue Morgue Magazine’s video game editor Evan Millar to get to the root of why Murder House is such a memorable survival horror ride, and why Puppet Combo’s work resonates so much with horror fans.